Attack of the Yetis, page 9
“Listen to me,” Dobson said. “I know it all sounds crazy, okay? I really do. Crazy or not though, it’s all real and the creatures that wiped out the base are on their way to you.”
“We’re at sea,” Captain Shoyer argued. “How …?”
“You’re surrounded by ice, Captain,” Dobson reminded him. “They’ll cross it and come straight at you.”
Captain Shoyer sighed. “We’ll take what precautions we can, Dobson. I want you on the bridge ASAP after that copter touches down.”
“Yes, sir,” Dobson answered.
Gesturing for the on-duty comm. officer to end the transmission and switch him over to the Hobart’s internal intercom, Captain Shoyer started barking orders. “All hands, action stations! I repeat, action stations! This is not a drill.”
His XO, Lifeson, watched him carefully. “So you really believe him?”
“We can’t afford to be wrong about this,” Captain Shoyer replied. “If these supposed creatures are coming at us and even half as dangerous as Dobson plays them to be, we need to be ready. I want you to take personal command of our remaining marines and get them out on the deck.”
“Commander Lewis won’t be happy about me taking command of his men,” Lifeson warned.
“He’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it,” Captain Shoyer snarled. “Now get going already.”
“Yes, sir!” Lifeson snapped and raced away to carry out his orders.
A ship like the Hobart had no real defense against boarders scaling her sides other than defending them with small arms. Boarding vessels in such a fashion just wasn’t anything that was concerned a real threat in a modern world of C.I.W.S.s, long-range missiles, and heavy guns. The ship had a crew of close to a hundred aboard her, counting the remaining dozen plus marines assigned to be her muscle on this op. Captain Shoyer knew Lewis’s marines were the best of the best, but their numbers simply weren’t enough to realistically defend a ship of the Hobart’s size. Doing so in the manner they were about to had never been their purpose. Lifeson was going to have to back them up with members of the ship’s crew if they were going to have a chance. Thankfully, the Hobart had a large armory aboard her given the nature of her mission and some of his crew, while not marines, could certainly use them.
****
As soon as the copter landed on the Hobart, Dobson was out of it and heading for the ship’s bridge. The copter was met by two armed marines and a pair of medics. Dobson shoved through them, refusing to be stopped, telling them that he had orders straight from the captain himself to report to him ASAP. The medics would tend to Leah and Quinn if they needed it and get them where they needed to go. Eventually, he knew Captain Shoyer would want to talk directly with Leah, as she was the last surviving member of the science team, in the hope that she had some insight that might be helpful in regards to the monsters, what the creatures were, and how to stop them, but there was no time for that now. Dobson felt bad about leaving Leah and Quinn, but he knew his duty was elsewhere. Captain Shoyer and his crew were going to need all the help they could get in repelling the alien Yetis if and when the monsters made a move against the ship.
Dobson never reached the bridge. On his way there, he ran into the ship’s XO, a man named Lifeson, and was swept up into readying the Hobart’s defense. The marines, the ship’s normal security troops, and several members of the crew that had been drafted into joining them were deploying around the ship’s main deck. They were taking up watch position around all her sides to keep an eye out for anything that might be coming at her over the ice. Dobson knew the ship’s engineers were scrambling to bring her fully online and to get her moving. The sooner that happened, the better off they would all be. Breaking through ice though was slow going and the monsters out there were fast. The ship wouldn’t be truly safe until she was completely free of the ice she was currently in and out in the open water.
“I’ve let the captain know you’re aboard,” Lifeson assured him, “and told him that I snagged you to help out here. I am sure that the scientist you brought with you can deal with any questions he might have.”
“She can,” Dobson agreed, frowning at the M-16A Lifeson shoved into his hands. “This ain’t gonna work though.”
Dobson handed the rifle back to the XO. “I want a shotgun and a bandolier of shells for it.”
“You heard the man,” Lifeson snapped at Commander Lewis, passing the rejected rifle to a nearby security trooper.
“You need some real firepower to take these bastards down,” Dobson spat. “Their big, strong, fast, and their blasted muscles are so thick that anything that doesn’t have some real kick to it isn’t going to do anything more than make them angry.”
Commander Lewis stared at him. “They’re really that tough, huh?”
“You have no fragging idea what you and your men are in for, sir,” Dobson assured him.
The ship’s motley group of defenders finished spreading out across her deck. Lewis made sure he had eyes in every direction of possible approach and that the squad had at least one radio with it. Lifeson had headed to the ship’s front to oversee things there while Dobson joined Commander Lewis at the ship’s rear. The two of them stood with a trio of marines facing the ice that stretched onward as far as the eye could see behind the ship which wasn’t very far. A new round of snow had rolled in and blown about in the air like a thick fog over the ice surrounding the ship. One of the marines had a pair of binoculars, scanning the ice. Dobson turned to the man.
“Let me have those,” he snapped.
The marine looked questioningly at Commander Lewis.
“Give them to him,” Lewis ordered.
The marine reluctantly handed the binoculars to Dobson who took them and lifted them to his eyes. There was so much white it was extremely difficult to see anything. He knew all too well just how perfectly the white hair that covered the bodies of the creatures made them blend seamlessly into it. He had taken the binoculars from the marines in the hopes that with his knowledge of the creatures, he might have a better shot at spotting them if they were out there.
Dobson panned about with the binoculars, looking for any sign of movement amid the blowing snow. He spotted the first creature in a matter of seconds. It was lopping towards the ship at a hurried gait. Dobson looked beyond the creature, searching for more of its kind. He found them. The ice seemed to be covered with the monsters. His best guess put the number of the creatures at close to a hundred. His gut told him that it was every one of the creatures in the area, likely all of them that were on Earth. During the flight to the ship, he had overheard Quinn and Leah talking about the creatures and where they might have come from.
Leah’s theory was that a spaceship of some kind had crashed down here. These alien Yetis weren’t its pilots or crew as she saw things. More likely she believed that they had been the ship’s cargo set loose when the ship slammed into the ice. He assumed she was assuming this because the Yeti-like creatures though extremely cunning didn’t seem to show too much in terms of true intelligence. How long they had been here, she didn’t have a clue, but she was certain their numbers would only grow with time if left unchecked. If she had the authority to call in a nuclear strike to wipe them, she would have done it. That was very clear from how she spoke about the creatures. Leah believed that there was a lot more to these creatures than any of them had seen so far and what they had seen was only the beginning of what the things were capable of. All of it was just her personal thoughts on it, but she was a trained scientist and had been studying the radiation the things emitted for days now. Dobson was inclined to agree with her on the nuke part, but sadly, that really wasn’t an option.
Lowering the binoculars, Dobson handed them to Commander Lewis and directed him as to where for look for the approaching monsters. “We got incoming … and a lot of it.”
“Lock and load, folks!” Commander Lewis yelled, having seen what he needed to. “We can’t let them get onboard with us.”
The bulk of the Hobart’s rear was open space and helipads. The ship had gotten moving at last. She was pushing forward through the ice around her at a speed of close to nine miles an hour, and Dobson knew that speed would slowly increase as she really got going. It was too slow to matter any to the creatures though. The ship might as well be sitting still.
“Hold your fire until those things are in range,” Commander Lewis shouted at the ship’s defenders positioned along its rear deck.
Most of the defenders were armed with M27 and M-16A2 rifles. The two types of rifles had pretty much the same effective range. Dobson’s shotgun couldn’t match either of them, but if those things got through the defenders’ blanket of fire, it was the weapon he wanted to have in his hands. He had seen what a close-up shotgun blast did to the creatures and knew it could take them down with only a shot or two if used correctly.
One of the Yeti-like creatures, far taller than the others around it, standing close to eleven feet tall, emerged from the blowing snow enough to be visible. It raised a clawed hand in the direction of the ship and roared so loudly its cry could be heard over the ship’s engine on its deck. Dozens of the creatures burst from the snow that was whipping about on the wind and charged towards the ship with what seemed almost impossible speed. They flung themselves at the sides of the ships, their claws digging into its metal as they climbed upwards towards the deck where Dobson and the others waited.
“Fire at will!” Commander Lewis yelled and all hell opened up. Everyone with a weapon poured rounds into the creatures as the things climbed the ship. The barrage of automatic fire was deafening. The curve of the Hobart’s hull made clear shots at any of the creatures who hadn’t already made their way near to its top difficult. As the creatures reached that point though, the frantically fired shots from the Hobart’s defenders hammered into them. The worst hit creatures shrieked and howled, some of them losing their hold on the ship’s hull to fall onto the ice below. Others refused to be driven back and clawed their way onward despite the hell being inflicted on them. Dobson could see that the creatures weren’t going to be held at bay. There were too many of them, too determined, and not enough firepower being poured into their ranks to stop them all.
One of the creatures came bounding up over the deck’s railing to fling itself at two marines. The marines, to their professional credit, swung their rifles to meet it even as it came at them. Bullets slammed into the beast as it snarled and put a fist through the chest of the closest marine. Blood and gore exploded from his back and smeared the white hair covering the creature’s hand as it yanked the hand free. The other marine was yelling curses at the monster, his finger tight on the trigger of his M-16A2 as the beast turned its attention to him. Ignoring the rounds striking it, the beast reached out to grab the sides of the marine’s skull and crushed it, letting the man fall at its feet. The beast’s body was leaking green blood from numerous wounds as a third marine charged at, firing as he ran. Catching the barrel of the marine’s rifle, it tore it from the marine’s hands, tossing it over the deck’s railing. The marine tried to skid to a halt out of the creature’s reach, but he was already too close. The beast’s claws entered the flesh of his groin and ripped their way up his body, rending muscle and meat up to the bottom of his neck. The deck around the beast was slick with its blood and that of the three marines it had slaughtered as Dobson approached it. He came in quick from the beast’s right, pumping a round into the chamber of his shotgun. He emptied it into the thing’s side. The beast stumbled sideways, a gaping hole in its left ribs. Dobson pumped another round and finished the creature with a shot that sent it reeling over the deck’s railing. He was already shoving new rounds into his shotgun as Dobson saw more of the beasts coming over the railing.
The rear deck of the ship turned into a bloody chaos as the beasts turned the battle into an up close and personal one. A deckhand armed with a shotgun like Dobson’s scored a point-blank hit that caused the head of one of the beasts to blow apart atop its shoulders. The creature’s headless body flopped onto deck and a puddle of green grew about it where it lay. The deck hand’s victory was a short-lived one though. Another beast plowed into him like a charging linebacker. The man’s body folded up, bones snapping under his flesh from the impact, as the beast carried him along several yards before stopping. The beast rose up with a roar, challenging the rest of the ship’s defenders. The tide of the battle had turned on the drop of a dime as the beasts had made it onto the ship’s deck. Their strength and numbers gave them the advantage in the wide-open space where they could move about freely with the speed of predator cats. Claws gutted men as they screamed their final cries.
The ship’s defenders weren’t about to give up though. Commander Lewis wasn’t going to let them. Dobson saw the commander standing near the right side of the deck, covered in green blood, a still smoking, likely emptied M-162A dangling from a strap under his arm, as he fired at the creatures with his pistol held in a two-handed grip.
When the battle had started, half the Hobart’s remaining marines, six security officers, and another five armed men and women drafted from her crew were in place to hold off the monsters. Now, there were five defenders left, the commander, and himself among them as Dobson looked around at the carnage that slicked the metal of the ship’s deck. Green and red blood mingled together everywhere. Dobson knew the battle was lost but withdrawing didn’t feel like an option. He wanted each and every one of the beasts dead and stopped here, no matter what it took. What he wanted and what needed to be done were entirely different things though.
Dobson watched as several of the beasts closed in on Commander Lewis. He could see what Lewis had planned in his eyes even before Lewis yanked something free from the pocket of his jacket. The commander had let his emptied pistols fall from his hands. The two fastest of the creatures sunk their claws into him as Lewis pulled the grenade’s pin. The blast that came afterwards shook the deck. Lewis and the two creatures already on him went up in an explosion that flashed white hot and sprayed four more of the beasts unlucky enough to be in range of it with white phosphorous. The beasts shrieked and howled as they burned. One of them threw itself to the deck, rolling about in vain. Another smashed at its own body with its massive hands. The other two hurled themselves from the deck towards the frozen water below.
The Hobart had picked up to her full speed while cutting through the ice. It was still slow going though, far too slow to matter in terms of the beasts still chasing her on the ice and leaping onto her sides to climb towards her decks. She was almost out to sea, but there were already so many of the beasts aboard her that even without any more added to their number … Dobson shook away those dark thoughts and focused again on the battle around him.
“Fallback!” he yelled at the few other men and women still alive on the rear deck with him. Dobson moved to cover a female marine as she heard his shout and ran towards the doorway leading into the ship’s interior. Another of the ship’s defenders was already there, an M-16A2 in his hands, as he blazed away on full auto at one of the beasts coming from the ship’s bow. Dobson didn’t have time to consider just what the appearance of that beast meant for the fate of XO Lifeson and the soldiers up there. His attention was focused on covering the female marine. Throwing himself into the path of the beast chasing her, he fired his shotgun, pumped another round, and fired again. The first shot blew the beast’s arm apart, severing it at its elbow. The beast squealed in the moment before his second shot ripped into its open mouth, shattering its teeth and reducing its cheeks to mangled tissue in an explosion of green gore. Even as the beast collapsed, four more came charging forward passed its dropping corpse. Cursing, Dobson knew he couldn’t stop them all. He turned and ran after the marine. She had reached the gunman at the doorway and joined him in trying to defend it. It looked like the three of them were all that was left now.
“Get inside and seal the door!” Dobson shouted as he ran toward the two of them.
The man who was clearly one of the Hobart’s crew who had been drafted into her defense by Commander Lewis stopped firing and ducked through the doorway. The marine held her ground, attempting to cover Dobson until he reached her. Her rifle clicked empty. She flung it aside, drawing her sidearm. Dobson aimed his run to collide with her, knocking her inside the corridor beyond the door. The crewman slammed it shut as soon as they were through it. As he scrambled to get it secure, one of the beasts came crashing into it. The door swung inward, flinging the man away from it. He bounced against the wall of the corridor with a grunt and slumped to the floor. Dobson whirled on the beast, pumping a round ready, as he shoved the barrel of his shotgun to its forehead. His shotgun thundered and bucked in his hands as he squeezed its trigger. The best was flung backwards out of the doorway, a gaping hole of shredded and torn, green-slicked meat in its skull. Dobson grabbed for the door but realized he would never get it secured in time. He let go of the door, shoving the marine ahead of him.
“Run!” he shouted as she dashed along the corridor with him following after her. A crewman emerged from one of the corridor’s side doorways at the sound of the commotion outside. He died a quick death despite the drawn pistol he clutched in his hands. One swing of the Yeti-like beast’s claws removed half his face and his right eye in a splash of blood.
Dobson could hear more of the beasts trying to fight passed each other to get into the corridor, but he turned to fight anyway. His shotgun’s barrel flashed as he put a heavy slug into the creature’s ribs. Green blood splattered over the wall of the corridor as the creature grunted and its charge came to an end. Dobson fired again. The creature already fractured ribs folded inward as it fell over backwards to thud onto the floor. Dobson fished around in his pocket for more shells only to discover that he was out. The one left in his shotgun was the last one he had. Dobson looked up into the feral, yellow eyes of another beast as it leaped over the body of the creature he had just killed to spring at him with a fierce roar of anger. Its fist came swinging at him. Dobson dodged the blow narrowly, trying to maneuver himself to get a close-in shot at the beast with his last round. The Yeti-like creature’s fist struck the corridor wall. The metal there dented, curving from the force of the beast’s blow. Dobson took his shot. His positioning for a lethal shot against the creature wasn’t perfect. The heavy slug from his shotgun tore into the beast’s guts. Green-slicked strands of intestines protruded from the creature’s stomach where his shot had entered it. The Yeti clutched at its spilling entrails, trying to force them back inside its body. It lashed out at him with its other hand, taking a second swing at him. This time, Dobson wasn’t able to escape the full force of the blow. It glanced him as he twisted his body trying to get out of its path. Dobson was knocked to the corridor floor and lay there staring up at the beast. He heard an M-16A2 open up at the monster towering over him. The marine he had saved on the deck stood several yards down the corridor, her rifle hosing the beast with a continuous stream of automatic fire. She very smartly aimed for the monster’s already opened-up abdomen. Each round that struck the creature’s guts sent green blood splashing outward as it entered. The creature reeled, staggering away from Dobson.
